Instruction
Jumping for Distance (Part 2): The One-Foot Jump
In Part 1, I wrote about how I think this concept of jumping up with both feet for more power may have come about in part due to misinterpretation of still photography and force plate data, self-propagation, and a possible case of correlation vs causation. I also covered reasoning why these players are often airborne, and that can be from flawed setups that include overly wide stances and/or lead foot positions that are too closed at setup or a re-planted lead foot that ends up too closed during the downswing.
In Part 2, let’s look at what I feel is a better alternative, the one foot jump. To me, it’s safer, it doesn’t complicate ball striking as much, and it can still generate huge amounts of vertical ground force.
First, set up with an appropriate stance width. I like to determine how wide to stand based on the length of your lower legs. If you go to your finish position and stand on your lead leg and let your trail leg dangle down so your knees are parallel, your lower trail leg should extend only as far back as it will go while being up on the tip of your trail toe. If you roll that trail foot back down to the ground, viola, you’ll have a stance width that’s wide enough to be “athletic” and stable but not so wide you lose balance when swinging. You can go a little wider than this, but not much.
To contrast, the stance below would be too wide.
Second, make sure your lead foot is open sufficiently at address. I’ve previously outlined how to do both these first two points in this article.
Third, whether you shift your weight to your trail foot or keep a more centered weight type feeling in the backswing, when you shift your weight to your lead foot, be careful of the Bubba replant, and then push up with that lead leg to push your lead shoulder up. This is the one-foot “jump” and it will take advantage of parametric acceleration (read more about that here).
But also at the same time, shift your lower spine towards the target.
From a face-on viewpoint, this can look like back bend, but in 3D space it’s side bend. It kind of feels like you are crunching the trail side of your mid-section, or maybe just bending over to the side to pick up a suitcase, for example. This move helps lower your trail shoulder, which brings down the club (whereas this is more difficult to do if you try to two-foot jump with your trail leg). It also helps you to keep from getting airborne off your lead foot. Further it doesn’t change your low point (by not changing the relative position of the C7 vertebrae in its general orb in space) and complicate ball striking like a two-foot jump does.
At this point, the club releases and you can stand up out of the shot (you don’t need to transition in to any sort of dangerous back bend) in balance on your lead foot having generates tons of vertical ground force without having jumped off the ground or putting yourself at risk for injury.
“Movember” mustache… not required!
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Instruction
Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!
Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?
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Instruction
How a towel can fix your golf swing
This is a classic drill that has been used for decades. However, the world of marketed training aids has grown so much during that time that this simple practice has been virtually forgotten. Because why teach people how to play golf using everyday items when you can create and sell a product that reinforces the same thing? Nevertheless, I am here to give you helpful advice without running to the nearest Edwin Watts or adding something to your Amazon cart.
For the “scoring clubs,” having a solid connection between the arms and body during the swing, especially through impact, is paramount to creating long-lasting consistency. And keeping that connection throughout the swing helps rotate the shoulders more to generate more power to help you hit it farther. So, how does this drill work, and what will your game benefit from it? Well, let’s get into it.
Setup
You can use this for basic chip shots up to complete swings. I use this with every club in my bag, up to a 9 or 8-iron. It’s natural to create incrementally more separation between the arms and body as you progress up the set. So doing this with a high iron or a wood is not recommended.
While you set up to hit a ball, simply tuck the towel underneath both armpits. The length of the towel will determine how tight it will be across your chest but don’t make it so loose that it gets in the way of your vision. After both sides are tucked, make some focused swings, keeping both arms firmly connected to the body during the backswing and follow through. (Note: It’s normal to lose connection on your lead arm during your finishing pose.) When you’re ready, put a ball in the way of those swings and get to work.
Get a Better Shoulder Turn
Many of us struggle to have proper shoulder rotation in our golf swing, especially during long layoffs. Making a swing that is all arms and no shoulders is a surefire way to have less control with wedges and less distance with full swings. Notice how I can get in a similar-looking position in both 60° wedge photos. However, one is weak and uncontrollable, while the other is strong and connected. One allows me to use my larger muscles to create my swing, and one doesn’t. The follow-through is another critical point where having a good connection, as well as solid shoulder rotation, is a must. This drill is great for those who tend to have a “chicken wing” form in their lead arm, which happens when it becomes separated from the body through impact.
In full swings, getting your shoulders to rotate in your golf swing is a great way to reinforce proper weight distribution. If your swing is all arms, it’s much harder to get your weight to naturally shift to the inside part of your trail foot in the backswing. Sure, you could make the mistake of “sliding” to get weight on your back foot, but that doesn’t fix the issue. You must turn into your trial leg to generate power. Additionally, look at the difference in separation between my hands and my head in the 8-iron examples. The green picture has more separation and has my hands lower. This will help me lessen my angle of attack and make it easier to hit the inside part of the golf ball, rather than the over-the-top move that the other picture produces.
Stay Better Connected in the Backswing
When you don’t keep everything in your upper body working as one, getting to a good spot at the top of your swing is very hard to do. It would take impeccable timing along with great hand-eye coordination to hit quality shots with any sort of regularity if the arms are working separately from the body.
Notice in the red pictures of both my 60-degree wedge and 8-iron how high my hands are and the fact you can clearly see my shoulder through the gap in my arms. That has happened because the right arm, just above my elbow, has become totally disconnected from my body. That separation causes me to lift my hands as well as lose some of the extension in my left arm. This has been corrected in the green pictures by using this drill to reinforce that connection. It will also make you focus on keeping the lead arm close to your body as well. Because the moment either one loses that relationship, the towel falls.
Conclusion
I have been diligent this year in finding a few drills that target some of the issues that plague my golf game; either by simply forgetting fundamental things or by coming to terms with the faults that have bitten me my whole career. I have found that having a few drills to fall back on to reinforce certain feelings helps me find my game a little easier, and the “towel drill” is most definitely one of them.
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Instruction
Clement: Why your practice swing never sucks
You hear that one all the time; I wish I could put my practice swing on the ball! We explain the huge importance of what to focus on to allow the ball to be perfectly in the way of your practice swing. Enjoy!
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Brian Mills
Dec 15, 2017 at 5:55 pm
I assume the guy in the skeleton suit is Mike Austin?
Alfred
Dec 15, 2017 at 7:53 am
Parts 1 and 2 are lovely articles, but as a very long hitter (but just a bit better than average golfer – putting…) I can testify that the mechanical generalities written about are fine in the laboratory, but general models don’t cut it on the golf course. We all have differently proportioned and/or more or less marginalized bodies, whether from injury, habit or genetics. Everybody has to find their own swing based on our own eccentricities. I’ve tried the formula written about above – go to your lead leg with the trailing toe on the ground and then move down into a proper stance width (ore or less) – and if I were to adhere to this model, my hips are totally out of whack (typically badly open) because of my life history of injuries and habits from other sports played. My “most balanced” (and most effective) stance width would be “too wide” for the author. My buddies see me walk all over the place and jump as I hit when my ball striking is at its best because of the relative stability of my upper body that my “too wide” stance allows. A narrow stance which typically opens my hips at set-up usually results in my front leg posting up and spinning out, causing me to lose balance and thus creating a need to compensate with my smallest muscles (hands, wrists, forearms) in an attempt to square the club face at impact. My best set-up is one that allows my upper body to remain as stable as possible through impact – “level and square” – while my lower body does what it needs to do to get out of the way. Let’s not forget that the best ball strikers in the world do what they do however they do it because their conditions – exemplary practice, coaching and physical training – allow them to do it. For the rest of us, without all the time we’d like to practice, the deep pockets for consistent and excellent coaching and bodies not trained since youth to hit golf balls, we have to make do with finding a technique to best allow us to square the club face with the ball to get it to the target. My advice – work yourself into a posture relative to the target line which allows your arms to swing in front of you as your lower body clears – all without breaking (cupping) the leading wrist as you come into the ball at impact, which allows you to finish your swing in a balanced and comfortable posture facing “towards” the target. It’s personal.
stevek
Dec 17, 2017 at 2:09 pm
Thank you Charles “Alfred” Barkley …. Alabamy bound … 🙂
Kyle
Dec 14, 2017 at 8:49 pm
Jaacob, any examples of PGA tour pros that would represent good examples of this method?
Jaacob Bowden
Dec 15, 2017 at 11:16 am
Guys that have a lot of these things (front foot sufficiently open at setup, not too wide of stance at setup, pretty good footwork, increasing spine angle from a face-on viewpoint, pushing up somewhat with the lead leg, not getting airborne or spinning out on the front foot, finishing in balance, etc)…Sam Snead, John Daly, and Mike Austin come to mind. I’m sure there are many more, but those are usually the ones I think of first.
In the swing at 0:45 in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv_hi0mQr0s&t=44s, you can really see Austin pushing up with his lead leg. The swing at 1:13, you can see him increasing his spine angle on the way down.
stevek
Dec 14, 2017 at 11:31 am
LD contestants generate so much centrifugal force pulling them outwards and downwards they jump up to counteract these high centrifugal and ground reaction forces.
juststeve
Dec 14, 2017 at 11:26 am
I like what he says about stance width. It is easy to get too wide.
Steve
stevek
Dec 14, 2017 at 2:27 pm
A wider stance is necessary to counter the high lateral thrust forces generated when weight is shifted so fast. No mystery here.
RBImGuy
Dec 14, 2017 at 5:14 pm
hum what really?
Not so much
ron
Dec 14, 2017 at 11:07 pm
^^^High golf score/Low golf IQ Guy